Badminton at 2024 Paris Olympics: Scoring rules, format and path to medal
The Paris Olympics is all set to commence on July 26, and will comprise around 329 medal events across 32 sports. Among them is badminton, a sport which was added to the Summer Games as a demonstration sport back in the 1972 Munich Games. Later on in the Seoul Olympics, it was included as an exhibition sport and finally it became an official sport at the Games in the 1992 Barcelona edition.
The 1992 Games saw four categories played - men's and women's singles, and men's and women's doubles. In 1996 Atlanta, the mixed doubles category was also added.
A total of 121 medals have been won in badminton at the Olympics and Asian candidates have dominated it with a staggering 106. The upcoming Paris Olympics will witness 172 top shuttlers vying for five medals.
India this time will field one of their finest badminton contingents. Led by former medalist PV Sindhu, the squad has the promising duos of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Ashwini Ponnappa-Tanisha Crasto. Shuttlers like HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen will aim to impress at the upcoming Games as well.
Rules of the sport
The sport of badminton is played on a court which is divided into two equal halves by a net. Shuttlers use a racket and a feather cock or shuttlecock to play this sport.
During a rally, a shuttler aims to send the shuttlecock to the other side of the net in a way that the opponent faces difficulty to send it back. Every serve sees a win or loss in point.
It is played in the best-of-three format and a shuttler must win two games of 21 points to claim the match in their favor.
Format and path to medal
Badminton at the Olympics has five categories - men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles. The singles games start from the group stage, then move on to the Round of 16. From there on, the best eight athletes move onto the quarter-finals, following which there are the semi-finals. Ultimately, there is a Bronze Medal match and a Gold Medal match or the Final.
The doubles games start from the group stage but unlike the singles, the competition moves directly to the quarter-finals and then follows the same format as the singles games.